The Best, Worst, and Cheapest Black Friday Gaming Deals

Black Friday is almost upon us, and I already have my surefire game plan mapped out: Get up at the crack of noon, pour myself a cup of egg nog, put on Cee Lo's new Christmas album and watch YouTube videos of crowds of people popping Walmart doors off their hinges, trampling the weak, and getting into fistfights in the electronics section after assaulting a security guard. If I don't see two grandmothers spray each other with industrial-grade mace over the last Skylanders playset I will officially declare the holiday season null and void.

But for all that to happen, you've got to get out there and drop-kick your way to low prices. And if you're going to take that risk, you'd better be armed with information. The last thing you want is to come back with fewer savings than you could have. All of the major retailers are offering deep discounts on gaming systems this Black Friday, but some are much better than others. I've sifted through everything to find the best values for your money, the rock-bottom lowest prices and the deals that really aren't.

Disclaimer: Prices and availability may vary depending on where you live!

Image: Microsoft, illustration: Wired

Wii

Nintendo's new Wii U is all the rage, but the regular ol' Wii is going to be dirt-cheap this year and even has some brand-new games like Epic Mickey 2 and Skylanders Giants. If you're on a budget or buying for youngsters, it's a great deal.

Best: The good news is that Sears is selling the $130 Wii bundle that includes the Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort games for just $100. The bad news is that Sears is opening for Black Friday a little early. Like, 8 p.m. on Thursday early. So you have to show up, all crammed full of turkey and booze, Thanksgiving night.

Cheapest: If you just want the total rock-bottom price, Walmart and Sam's Club will be selling Wii with no games whatsoever for just $90. While you're there, apparently they'll have the UDraw tablet controller for just $10. Lie to your kids and tell them it's a Wii U. Again, though, the price starts on 8 p.m. Thursday.

Nintendo has a $150 package that includes a Wii and the new Skylanders Giants game on shelves throughout the holiday (pictured). But if you hit up Walmart on Thursday night you can get the game for $39, which combined with a $90 console makes for savings of $21.

Worst: Besides the fact that Best Buy seems to have no Wii price drop whatsoever, Toys"R"Us seems to have the lamest deal: Buy the Sports bundle at the regular price and get a free Lego-styled Wiimote controller plus a $10 gift card. Eh. Why even get up?

That said, if you're looking to buy Wii U games for your new console, TRU has a buy-one, get-one-40-percent-off deal on Thursday and Friday. And Old Navy is actually giving away free copies of New Super Mario Bros. U to the first people in line on Friday at midnight, with a $40 purchase.

Image: Nintendo

Xbox 360

Prices on Microsoft's game console haven't fallen quite as low as Nintendo's. Quite frankly, if you'd told me back when the Xbox 360 launched at $300 in 2005 that it would be selling for $200 seven years later and that this would be considered a major discount, I would have punched you in the face.

Best: If you're looking to pick up a 360 with the Kinect motion controller, the best deal is at Target. Many stores will have a holiday-only bundle (pictured) featuring a 4GB Xbox, Kinect and two games (Kinect Adventures and Kinect Disneyland), but Target's will be $200 instead of $250. Amazon will have the same deal on Thursday evening.

If you could care less about Kinect (and there's a good chance of that), Best Buy has the pro gamer's bundle, featuring the 250GB Xbox and the games Forza Motorsport 4 and Skyrim for $200. Note that Skyrim is a downloadable copy, not a disc.

Cheapest: Walmart will have a deep discount on the low-end 4GB Xbox 360. It'll cost $150, or $50 cheaper than normal, and include a starter pack for Skylanders. From the looks of the ad, it will also include a limited-edition green-colored "Gill Grunt" Skylander figure, which apparently hasn't been made available anywhere except this bundle. The catch: This, too, begins on 8 p.m. Thursday.

Worst: Looks like it's Toys"R"Us, again; if you buy the Xbox 360 Kinect package at full price they will magnanimously give you a third-party Xbox 360 controller.

Image: Microsoft

PlayStation 3

If you can believe it, Sony actually raised the price of PlayStation 3 earlier this year, introducing a new model and marking it up from $250 to $270. But it also launched an initiative to take all the guesswork out of Black Friday. It put a limited-time MSRP of $200 on a PlayStation 3 Ultimate Value Bundle (pictured), which includes the console, a disc with the first two Uncharted games, and another with the two Infamous games.

Since this price is available practically everywhere, and since no retailers are offering any further discounts, just go anywhere you like to get a PS3. Amazon will offer this deal early Thursday evening.

But wait: I guess if you want to squeeze as much value out of this as possible, you could go to Toys"R"Us, who will give you that free third-party PlayStation 3 controller when you buy the $200 bundle. So there's that.

Image: Sony

Nintendo 3DS

Nintendo released its new 3DS XL system this year, giving the handheld console longer battery life and a much bigger screen. I vastly prefer it to the old 3DS. Unfortunately, not only are no retailers are offering discounts on the XL this year, Nintendo isn't even bundling any software with it to spice up the value.

If you still want to buy the regular 3DS, there's a good deal available: Nintendo has pre-installed the system's best game, Super Mario 3D Land, onto a limited run of red-colored 3DS consoles (pictured). The MSRP is $170, the same price as the base system.

Best: A couple of retailers are knocking down the limited-edition bundle's price to $150 for Black Friday: Best Buy and Target.

Cheapest: See above. It's $20 off the price of a 3DS even if you don't want Mario.

Worst: Sears has the bundle at $170, and is offering $20 back in redeemable Sears Points if you buy it. Uh, how about I just go to Target instead? Related: Where would you even find a Sears anymore?

Image: Nintendo

PlayStation Vita

After insisting that it was far too early to drop the price on its beleaguered gaming portable, Sony announced a range of $200 Vita bundles for Black Friday. The bundles include one of three games: Assassin's Creed Liberation (pictured), Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified or Lego Batman 2. Different retailers are offering different bundles at $200.

Best: Although the prices are identical, not all bundles are created equal. The Assassin's and Duty bundles include the console, the game and a 4GB memory stick. But the Batman pack does not. So go for the big value. GameStop and Amazon will have Assassin's, and Best Buy and Toys"R"Us will have Call of Duty.

Cheapest: The cheapest way to buy PlayStation Vita will be to wait until the price collapses in on itself à la the Nintendo 3DS, which should be sometime in 2013. (Update: Last-minute reports indicate that Amazon will sell its Vita bundle for $180 through a Gold Box deal on Thursday at noon Pacific time.

Worst: Well, technically that should be Target's Lego Batman bundle since it doesn't include a memory card but costs the same as the others. But the worst Vita bundle is the Black Ops package, because the game is pretty much terrible.

Image: Sony

Everything Else

If you're buying any version of Skylanders, whether the Xbox 360 or Wii bundle or whatever else, you can stock up on figurines to add some volume to what's under the tree. Best Buy will have them for $3 each on Friday. Starting at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Toys"R"Us will have a buy-one-get-one-free deal on single figures.

iPods, iPads and other tablets would be an entire separate feature. The Christian Science Monitor has rounded up the best deals on each of the major brands of tablet. As it turns out, there's not much wiggle room on the iPad's price this year, even for old models.